News and Events

Ashley James (A.J.) Welch, a leading biophotonics researcher and one of the founding faculty members of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at UT, died at the age of 88 on January 1, 2022. Welch leaves a legacy of fundamental research and influence that carry on in the students he mentored and colleagues with whom he worked. Known for his patience, kindness, and ability to teach, the UT community mourns his loss.

Texas BME students have used a new Imaging Clinical Immersion course to connect with clinical mentors, boost experience in medical device design, and find an engineering solution to a medical need in maternal fetal medicine.

Orhun Davarci, an integrated biomedical engineering master’s student, and Aleah Eskin and Naazneen Ibtehaj, two undergraduate students, participated in Texas BME’s pilot Imaging Clinical Immersion course, taught by Professors Mia Markey and Grady Rylander, last semester. The student team is now developing and pitching an innovative medical device idea that has received support from Texas Health Catalyst, an initiative between Dell Medical School and UT Austin that fosters innovation in health care.

The American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) has recognized Nicholas Peppas with their 2021 Global Leader Award. The AAPS Global Leader Award recognizes a leader working in pharmaceutical science, technology, engineering, or education whose contributions to the field have resulted in outstanding positive impact on education and public health.

Medical sensing technology has taken great strides in recent years, with the development of wearable devices that can track pulse, brain function, biomarkers in sweat and more. However, there is one big problem with existing wearable pressure sensors: even the slightest amount of pressure, something as light as a tight long sleeve shirt over a sensor, can throw them off track.

Pneumonia has emerged as a life-threatening complication of COVID-19, accounting for nearly half of all patients who have died from the novel coronavirus in the U.S. since the beginning of the pandemic. Even before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, pneumonia was responsible for more than 43,000 deaths in 2019.

The biomedical engineering undergraduate program in the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin has been ranked No. 16 in the U.S. News & World Report’s latest undergraduate rankings released on Sept. 13.

Aaron Baker has been promoted to full professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, effective September 1, 2021. He has made significant impacts on the department's culture of innovation, teaching, and research.

Despite tremendous advances in medicine, tumors are challenging to cure because they are made up of heterogeneous cells. Like human families, the individual cells of a tumor share some common traits and characteristics, but as the tumor expands, the cells also develop their own identities. And, as a result, some cells are more resistant to therapy than others and quicker to adapt and change.

Sapun Parekh, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, along with Texas BME alum Dr. Carolyn Bayer make up one of ten multidisciplinary research teams that have received a combined $1,150,000 in funding as part of the inaugural year of Scialog: Advancing BioImaging, a three-year initiative supported by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and Frederick Gardner Cotrell Foundation, that aims to accelerate the development of the next generation of imaging technologies.

Nicholas Peppas has been elected president of Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Honor Society, an international society for science and engineering. His three-year term began on July 1, 2021, and Peppas will help lead the organization’s continued focused on core goals of enhancing the health of the research enterprise, fostering integrity in science and engineering, and promoting the public's understanding of science.